What Happens When You Fast | 5 Spiritual Effects of Fasting (Mark 9)

Fasting often precedes significant spiritual assignments and breakthroughs. Therefore, if you are standing on the need of a breakthrough, go into a period of fasting. If you're standing on the need of guidance for what you want or believe God is doing in your life, go into a period of fasting. Say for this period, I'm not I'm I'm fasting from something. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be something grand. Whatever it is, you say to yourself, I'm fasting from this, and then you constantly remind yourself when you think about it, when you would go to do it or eat it or participate in the activity, I'm not doing this because I'm opening up this area for God. [00:36:10] (57 seconds)  #FastingForBreakthrough

If you ever get to a place where you only hear God's voice when other people are speaking, then that's an indication that your prayer life is not strong enough yet. It's not a negative. Do not beat yourself up because you say, well, I I'm I'm 60. I'm 70. I don't hear from God. I don't feel like I hear God for myself. Don't beat yourself up saying, I I should have I I I I I I I have wasted time. I've done something wrong. No. Let that be the the impetus for you to now say, I'm going into a season of fasting and prayer until I hear him speak. How does he sound? He sounds like how he sounds. For everybody, it's different. [00:34:02] (50 seconds)  #HearGodDirectly

Fasting our our fasting and prayer as we look at them together for a moment. They prepare us to serve the Lord in the capacity that he's called us. They prepare us to live the Christian life that we are ordained to live. But third and finally, they equip us to stand against the obstacles in the path. One of the challenges or to even push it in from this angle. One of the realities that so many Christians live with is that they are not able to overcome the obstacles not because they they they they desire to fall. And I I wanna debunk that for a second. Sometimes we think that everybody who that there's some people who just desire to not be right or desire to fall. That's not true. [00:27:41] (55 seconds)  #FastingPreparesForObstacles

That's why it's important that even when you engage in a collective fast or corporate prayer that you do not mistakenly think that God will only speak to the collective one word, but that you are in tune enough that though you may engage in the practice in community, you have a personal connection that you hear him individually. What's that look like? That looks like if you are on a fast with your church and the whole church say you're doing the Daniel fast. Many churches do the Daniel fast. You're doing the Daniel fast, and the church has prayer every day, and you're going to pray every day. You should not be walking out of there with the revelations exclusively that somebody else had. [00:30:59] (47 seconds)  #PersonalPrayerNotJustCorporate

Talked about how prayer is our communication to our connection to God where we speak to him and he speaks to us, where we lay our request at his altar and he's he grants them. He talks to us. He gives us clarity on direction. He calms our fears. He dries out tears. He speaks to us through prayer that we cannot grow as a strong Christian if we do not constantly seek to better our prayer life because that is the life source of our power. That is the life source of our connection, and that is the life source of our understanding of not just who God is, but who God is calling us to be. And so that's prayer. [00:08:51] (43 seconds)  #PrayerIsLifeSource

That's why when you are in alignment with God, you don't focus on the physical things that are happening in you or around you. You focus on the purpose of the spirit. And as you focus on the purpose of the spirit, you have a dependence and a trust and a confidence in god that if I walk by the spirit, god will take care of everything else. It is in in in many ways, it it even boils down in the definition of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I can't see these things because I'm not aware in the physical. I'm being aware in the spiritual. And as I'm aware in the spiritual, God takes care of everything in the physical. [00:21:54] (52 seconds)  #WalkBySpiritNotSight

So if the fast is coming on the front end of a journey, then it has given you all of these things to get ready for what God's gonna do. So Jesus is here. He's getting himself ready. The fast is preparing him for all that's getting ready to come. And then let let me let me jump down verse number three because verse one and two, he's gone into the wilderness forty days fasting. Verse three, the tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. So let's look because, fast of preparation. Fast gets us ready for something. Jesus fast preparation, and then forty days into the fast, temptation comes. [00:26:17] (44 seconds)  #FastAheadOfTheJourney

Satan confronts him with temptation. Jesus fights the temptation, and his ministry is now launched from a place of power and authority. Let's look at it. Verse three, the tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Verse four, Jesus answered, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. So immediately, he's tempted. He stands against the temptation. He fights it with the word, and his ministry goes forth with a victory, not a loss. [00:27:01] (40 seconds)  #ResistTemptationWithScripture

What it takes for me to get through my obstacles is prayer and fasting. The obstacles may be different. The challenges may not look the same, but the tools that we have to get through them are the same, prayer and fasting, because it's in our individual prayer and fasting journey that our connection to God strengthens. And this is the key. This is the piece that we can't lose sight of. And when your connection to God is authentically authentically strengthened and your line of communication with the Lord is a direct line from you to him, then God will strengthen you individually. God will strengthen you intentionally for what you will have to face. [00:30:09] (50 seconds)  #IndividualPrayerStrength

You should not be just copying and pasting the church's Instagram post and not saying this is what I'm hearing God speak to me also. Because what will happen is you will hear someone else's response from prayer and think that's for you for you. When in reality, God's saying the obstacles that you're you're hearing somebody else get deliverance on aren't the ones you're gonna face. So you have to get connected to me individually because Lent, while it may be expressed collectively, is still an individual journey. The Christian faith, and I want you to write this down, the Christian faith at its core is based on an individual decision. The Christian faith at its core is based on an individual decision and its practice as the byproduct of an individual relationship with God. [00:31:47] (57 seconds)  #DontCopyOthersHearGod

It is not worked out at its core from a communal decision. While you may practice it and walk it and we encourage to not forsake the assembly of the saints, the gathering of believers, we have to have a personal relationship. That's why Jesus even says, not everybody who calls me lord is really mine. Not everyone who says, lord, lord is really in relationship with me because some people do it just for show. Some people do it just to be connected in a in a community group, but they don't have real personal relationship. But at its core, Christianity is built on your individual connection. So if you're going to grow, if you're going to develop, if you're gonna become a stronger believer through prayer and fasting, you have to hear from God for yourself. And this is the this is the growing edge. [00:32:44] (57 seconds)  #PersonalFaithMatters

You listen in long enough to hear from God, and you practice these disciplines until you are confident in your connection because the obstacles are coming. And these disciplines, praying fasting, prepare you for them. Jesus, again, here in Matthew four, Jesus comes out of a season of forty days of fasting, immediately is confronted with temptation, immediately has to take a stand against an obstacle of the devil, and he defeats it, and now his ministry is launched in power. This reveals for us an important breakthrough and something that we've been sharing an important principle rather that we've been sharing through this that sums up this this part of this lesson in this line, and I want you to write this down. I want you to put this in the chat. I want you to save this. [00:35:07] (62 seconds)  #PracticeDisciplinesForObstacles

Fasting not only does it prepare us for the work God's gonna do, fasting and prayer also positions us to hear God clearly for the assignments that he has ordained. Now this is important. This is so important for leaders, for parents, for anybody in community, anyone who has any level of authority over others, whether it's on the workplace or in other settings and the like. It is so important that when decisions are made or the authority to make decisions lies and rest on individuals, That prayer and fasting is utilized so that the decisions that we make are the ones that God once made. [00:39:05] (55 seconds)  #FastingPositionsLeaders

Fasting positions our spirit to hear clearly from God, and this is the key, and strengthens our discernment. You've seen this thread throughout these last couple of studies that fasting strengthens our discernment. Before we wrap, let's I'm gonna let's break it down like this, and then we're gonna jump to our reflection questions. Discernment is our knowledge and understanding and clarity and the process through which we hear God and interpret how we apply what we believe we've heard from God to the actions and the situations we have to take place, we have to take care of. [00:41:16] (51 seconds)  #FastingSharpensDiscernment